Melbourne Knights v Marconi-Fairfield

The 1995/96 A-league grandfinal sees Marconi-Fairfield and the Melbourne
Knights battle it out for the championship title. These sides finished first
and second on the table respectively this season and the playoffs only
confirmed their status amongst this year's crop of teams.

The Knights are a regular fixture in recent grand finals but only recently
managed to win one, beating Adelaide City to become champions last season.
Over the past season the teams have met 3 times as well as their two-legged
tie early in the playoffs. The results were (home team listed first):

Round03..
Melbourne Knights 2 - Marconi-Fairfield 0

Round14..
Marconi-Fairfield 0 - Melbourne Knights 0

Round25..
Melbourne Knights 0 - Marconi-Fairfield 0

Playoff..
Melbourne Knights 1 - Marconi-Fairfield 0

Marconi-Fairfield 2 - Melbourne Knights 2

So on the surface it appears that Melbourne have the advantage over Marconi,
not having lost a match to the Sydneysiders all season. However the Olympics
have evened the score somewhat in that the Australian squad currently in
Canada attempting to become the 16th team into the Olympics has in it 3 key
Knights players, and only 1 player from Marconi. Joe Spiteri, Danny Tiatto
and most crucially goalkeeper Frank Juric are all missing from the Knights
lineup, whereas only Luke Casserly is away from the Marconi squad. Sadly
for Marconi top striker Francis Awaritefe was ruled out on the day of the
match with injury causing a reshuffle in the Marconi lineup.

The match kicked off at 3pm at Olympic Park in Melbourne under good conditions,
the only concern being a slightly bumpy pitch. Marconi had the early running
with Vlado Zoric managing to keep Andrew Marth quiet and Brendan Renaud doing
likewise to the extremely promising youngster Tomislav Pondeljak. This
still left a potent attack including Adrian Cervinski and John Markovski.
While the bulk of posession and field position went the way of the Knights
Marconi was no less productive in terms of play with Andrew Harper and
Matthew Bingley keeping the Knights defence busy. However the young
goalkeeper was not seriously threatened although he did look fragile
early in the match in the manner he dealt with crosses. One punch-out
landing at the feet of Eric Hristodoulou just outside the penalty area
was returned with a viciously dipping shot which dipped a little too late.

Marconi's most promising attacks were usually sniffed out by Joe Simunic
in particular before the Knights goal was threatened although on at
least one occasion the bumpy surface caused Matthew Bingley to trip when
Marconi were looking like opening the scoring. At the other end Souris and
Longo were doing an equally good job of policing the Marconi goal. The Knights
best chance came when a dribble past the defenders by John Markovski saw a
cross fired across the goal but no Knights in the centre to take advantage
of this.

So the half ended at 0-0 with little between the sides though the Knights
had demonstrated some degree of superiority. When the sides returned only
one change was made to the lineup with the ineffectual Ante Kovacevic
coming off for Vinko Buljubasic.

Whatever the Knights were told at half time seemed to have quite an effect
as they managed to string together some fine moves in an attempt to break
the deadlock. Early in the second half David Cervinski fed a beautiful ball
through to Marth just before Catlin could clean up the ball but Marth
wastefully put the shot beyond the post from barely 3 metres out.

While the chances were well constructed the first goal was somewhat scrappy.
The ball went wide to the substitute Buljubasic who then fed the ball
back into the middle which took a deflection off a defender. Andrew Marth
stretched out to get a foot to the ball which was enough to put Catlin off
and made him fumble the ball. Marth who was lying on the ground poked the
ball in with his left foot to score the opening goal after 58 minutes.

It didn't take long for the rest of the Knights to try their luck and
an intelligent lob was cleaned up by Catlin moments later before Marconi
even had a change to regroup. David Cervinski and Tom Pondeljak both made
almost length of the pitch runs before Marconi managed to get a free kick
from in front and just outside the penalty area. The shot was taken by
Brad Maloney and the crowd cheered mockingly when the ball went over the
6 man wall and kept right on going up, up and up.

There was nothing for it but to effect a change and Marconi coach Manfred
Schaefer hoped that the substitution of Gary van Egmond for John
Angelucci whould reap similar rewards as the change made by his counterpart,
Ian Dobson, at halftime. By this time the Knights attackers Markovski and
Pondeljak were showing signs of strain and were clearly not playing at
full strength. Dobson decided to remove Pondeljak, who seemed to be cramping
up, in favour of Joe Bacak. Sure enough there was no more than 5 minutes
passed when the speedy Joe Bacak crossed the ball after a header on from
a throw in, the goal did not eventuate as the free Cervinski wasn't tall
enough to capitalise. However the ensuing play did not leave the Marconi
half and eventually a corner was won and was taken by Lapsansky. An attempted
shot from Bacak was partially blocked and the ball ran wide to the right of
the Marconi goal where Adrian Cervinski was present to tuck the ball into
the net for goal number 2.

Marconi kept it interesting when they received a corner themsleves only
shortly afterwards. The corner was taken and landed neatly on Andrew
Harper's head and Wilson Knezevic had left his line leaving only a man
at the post who could do no more than head the ball into the roof of the
net. So back to 2-1 and Marconi showing that perhaps the game was still
within reach with about 12 minutes remaining.

Chances were made by both Marconi and Melbourne in the last 10 minutes with
Angelucci and Cervinski having the better chances for their respective teams
but in the end the final whistle best both teams to any further scoring and
with the whistle came the rapturous celebrations of the Knights fans who
flooded the pitch in enthusiastic but good-natured celebrations. The match
presentations were delayed somewhat but went ahead eventually and Andrew
Marth was voted player of the match.